President Trump is facing a test to his presidency unlike any faced by a modern American leader.

The dilemma — which he does not fully grasp — is that many of the senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.

The root of the problem is the president’s amorality. Anyone who works with him knows he is not moored to any discernible first principles that guide his decision making.

One, the word is immorality. Trump is nowhere close to being merely amoral.

Two, that was freaking obvious when he first ran for office in 2011. Quit acting like it's somehow a shock that, as Mouse put it, the leopard that ran on a platform of eating peoples' faces is trying to eat your face.

Also, not buying the "But we don't want to kick him out because he's doing so many good things" claim. Granted, this person and I probably disagree on the definition of "good" in many ways. But, what's he doing that they like that Pence wouldn't do as well or better? And wouldn't he be probably be more amendable to the stuff they do like that Trump is not doing?

In any case, the sheer damage being done to the institution of the Presidency -- and to our democratic norms in general -- needs to be stopped. If they can't invoke the 25th amendment, they can go to the GOP leadership in congress with the truth. (Possibly they're planning to do this after the mid-terms, when the political damage from Trump's fanatical base would be less immediate.)

The person who wrote the op-ed is a coward who knows he is going down on the wrong side of history and is trying to have an out. If the writer and his like minded friends truly believe this, they should say it straight out and either submit to Congress that he is unfit, or openly go before Congress and plead for impeachment (both would ultimately require 2/3rds of the Senate to agree, because Trump would dispute the finding).

I actually think much less of Trump's cabinet than before, and that is hard to do.

Anything that keeps Trump jumpy and scared isn't a bad thing. Sooner or later he's going to make the one mistake that will get enough people galvanized to actually do something about getting him out of the WH. In the meantime I take some pleasure in feeling that he's not having the grand old time he thought he was going to have.

I don't agree. Scared and jumpy Trump will probably lash out even more than usual. Who knows what kind of crap he will start because of this.

Quote:

Sooner or later he's going to make the one mistake that will get enough people galvanized to actually do something about getting him out of the WH.

If everything he's done up to this point has not caused the Republicans to oust him, there is little that will. If nothing else, this article will be used to prove that any Trump "failures" are because one of his own people is undermining him. ETA: Notice how much more mainstream the "deep state" bullcrap got because it was required to explain why Trump and the GOP led Congress couldn't get most of their campaign promises accomplished. This "treason" will simply provide proof of what they've been saying all along.

It's really not at all clear to me what this was supposed to accomplish.

Is it supposed to reassure people -- 'there's an adult in the room'? It's not going to do that; it's only going to further the impression that the administration's out of control.

Is it supposed to further the work the writer claims to be doing? It's going to do the exact opposite. How on earth would telling Trump straight out that his officials are trying to subvert him make it easier to do so? (Is the author assuming Trump doesn't read the NYTimes? even if that's true, of course somebody would tell him about it.)

I find myself wondering whether the author intends to actually support the worst of those trying to undermine any trust in the government, by giving credence to the 'deep state' claims. If so, the NYTimes apparently walked straight into that one, eyes closed.

I don't agree. Scared and jumpy Trump will probably lash out even more than usual. Who knows what kind of crap he will start because of this.

I see your point here and I think I chose my words poorly. I guess what I'm getting at is that anything that gives Trump a headache is fine by me. I may never get to see him led out of the WH in handcuffs but I'll settle for him being miserable.

I think the person really does think they, and their fellow theaters, are "unsung heroes" as they would have it. And they did the op-ed to try to keep voters who support Republican policies on board for the midterms, instead of being driven away by the crazy.

I also think, besides the family separation atrocity, this piece is the single worst piece of news to come out of the Trump administration. It references not using the 25th Amendment so as not to cause a "constitutional crisis." But that is what the 25th is for. It may be a crisis, but that's because it's a crisis to have someone so unfit for office as President that his own cabinet has to ask for his removal. What is a constitutional crisis of unprecedented* proportions is to have a secret conspiracy within an administration that is deciding which presidential directives to carry out, and which ones to ignore, or "thwart."

I know the Times won't reveal the source, which is good, but I actually agree with Trump's rant that it is a national security matter.

If the writer wants to be a hero, they need to invoke the 25th. The course they've described instead is a craven attempt to not have to pay the political price for having elected someone who is literally extremely unfit for the office.

* I'm not sure how unprecedented. I don't know the extent of what happened in Reagan's later years, but I suspect that it was a bit more along the lines of controlling access to him, and deciding when and if he would be approached. And that was also a time when the 25th perhaps should have been invoked.

I would say that the "stewardship" of Edith Wilson would be a stronger precedent for someone other than the President managing the President outside the normal channels of succession. Of course, the 25th Amendment didn't exist at the time so there was no formal way to declare that the President's Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office.

Also, I think not provoking a Constitutional crisis is code for "don't want to lessen the GOP's power by saying that their President is unfit", I doubt anyone in Trump's staff cares much about the Constitution.

Last edited by GenYus234; 06 September 2018 at 06:04 PM.
Reason: clarity

The person who wrote the op-ed is a coward who knows he is going down on the wrong side of history and is trying to have an out. If the writer and his like minded friends truly believe this, they should say it straight out and either submit to Congress that he is unfit, or openly go before Congress and plead for impeachment (both would ultimately require 2/3rds of the Senate to agree, because Trump would dispute the finding).

I actually think much less of Trump's cabinet than before, and that is hard to do.

Are you going with the lodestar theory? It could be right, but it could be that the author tried to make people suspect Pence with that word.

I think a lot of times when linguists figure out who wrote an anonymous text it's based on smaller words. From what I remember the authorship of some of the disputed Federalist Papers was resolved based on questions like which author wrote "while" and which author wrote "whilst".

It could be right, but it could be that the author tried to make people suspect Pence with that word.

Which is a tactic that Trump administration leakers are known to intentionally do to cover their tracks. They pay attention to other people's idioms and then use them in something they want to leak to both divert attention away from themselves and toward someone they may not like.

If it's the lodestar theory, I am not convinced it's that unusual of a word, and it was used in a conventional way. It just doesn't seem that convincing to me. I mean, it could be him, but that wouldn't be enough to convince that it is him.

It's quite possible that it's someone we've never or barely heard of. NPR had a guest this morning whose job labelled him as a "Senior Assistant" to the President (and who flatly contradicted the op-ed), who said that his role in the administration was nowhere near as important as the title might suggest, and that there might be hundreds of people at a similar level. It isn't necessarily someone in the cabinet, or anything of the sort. (Though it could be, too.)